Frequency of enforcement is more important than the severity of punishment in reducing violation behaviors

Kinneret Teodorescu, Ori Plonsky, Shahar Ayal and Rachel Barkan
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Kinneret Teodorescu: a Industrial Engineering and Management, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Technion City, Haifa 3200003, Israel;
Ori Plonsky: a Industrial Engineering and Management, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Technion City, Haifa 3200003, Israel;
Shahar Ayal: b School of Psychology, Reichman University (IDC), Herzliya 4610101, Israel;
Rachel Barkan: c Department of Business Administration, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva 84105, Israel

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2021, vol. 118, issue 42, e2108507118

Abstract: Ramifications of seemingly small violations, such as not adhering to COVID-19 regulations, accumulate fast with dire social consequences. The high costs of close monitoring and severe sanctions often lead policymakers to prioritize either the probability of inspection or the severity of punishments. Using common one-shot, descriptive settings, findings from experimental economics support the superiority of severe punishments, whereas findings from behavioral ethics highlight the role of internal rather than external enforcement. However, these settings are estranged from real-life environments in which learning about the external enforcement policy naturally occurs via repeated experience. Using a more ecologically valid, experience-based setting, we found robust evidence for the greater effectiveness of frequent small punishments over rare severe punishments in reducing violations.

Keywords: behavioral ethics; enforcement; decisions from experience; policy making; cheating (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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